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The Charles Bridge in Prague, early, before the crowd arrives. Four hours later you cannot see the paving stones · photo: Unsplash
Czechia — Everything We Know
“We snapped a few shots of what at times seems like a nice city, but after a quick turn left or right is quite dirty and discombobulated.” We got Czechia wrong. This is how not to.
Czechia is the country that gave me my worst travel day and my best travel story, in the same week.
We came in from Austria in November 2010 driving a rented RV with German plates, taking the fast route to Poland. We looked in our camping book for the driving rules and the country was not even listed. At the border we searched every sign for the word vignette. In Austria, Switzerland and Slovenia it had been marked everywhere. Here we saw nothing. An hour later four police officers pulled us over on the highway, made me blow into a breathalyser on the side of the road, walked me into a petrol station to buy the ten dollar sticker that nobody advertises, and handed me an eighty five dollar ticket. Then he found the Czech page in my own camping book. One page, no colour divider, easy to miss. He said small country, small page. I laughed. I did not say what I was thinking.
Prague was worse and it was our own fault. We spent from ten in the morning to past midday looking for somewhere to park a bus that size and ended up on streets that would be sidewalks anywhere else. We saw the Charles Bridge, took a few photos, and left. Adam’s write up says the city seemed nice and then you turn a corner and it is dirty and discombobulated. He also noted that Chuck Norris was watching over the telecoms network from a billboard, which is the most 2010 sentence in our entire archive.
So here is my honest position as an advisor. We did Czechia badly. We did it in a vehicle it does not want, on a schedule that gave it no chance, and we still came away knowing it deserved better. It is one of the best value countries in Europe. It is also the one where the gap between doing it right and doing it wrong is the widest. This guide is written so you do not repeat us.
Czechia City by City
Almost everyone goes to Prague and stops there, which is why Prague feels the way it feels and the rest of the country does not. These are the eight places worth building a trip around. Two or three of them, properly, beats all eight in a blur.
Prague
Cesky Krumlov
Brno
Karlovy Vary
Kutna Hora
Olomouc
Pilsen
Bohemian Switzerland
Why Czechia
Czechia is where a family that cannot afford western Europe can still have western Europe. Castles, cobbled squares, painted facades, forests and a food culture that runs on pork and dumplings, at roughly half what Austria costs and a third of Switzerland. That is the entire pitch and it holds up.
Who it is for. Families on a real budget who refuse to compromise on beauty. Castle kids. Anyone who wants a European capital where a sit down dinner for five does not require a discussion. Teenagers, because Prague has the kind of strange corners teenagers actually remember.
Who should skip it. Anyone who needs mountains or coast. Czechia is landlocked and gently hilly, not alpine. Skip Prague in July and August specifically if crowds ruin your mood, because the centre is genuinely mobbed and there is no clever hack around it. Go in March or go to Olomouc.
The koruna, not the euro
Czechia is in the EU but keeps its own currency. Prices look enormous and are not. Around 23 koruna to the dollar, so divide by twenty and you are close enough.
Beer is cheaper than water
Not a joke and not an exaggeration. Czechs drink more beer per person than anyone on earth and a half litre in a pub often costs less than a bottle of water.
Over two thousand castles
The highest density of castles and chateaux in the world. Most are cheap to enter, most are outside Prague, and most of them will be nearly empty.
Thanks Czech for the memories. Your highways are not pleasant to drive so I have no idea where all the vignette money goes.
Nicole Damiano, somewhere between the Czech border and Poland, November 2010Culture and Etiquette
Czechs are reserved, dry and not remotely interested in performing friendliness for tourists. That is not rudeness. It is a different default, and it softens fast once you stop expecting American service energy.
Nobody is going to beam at you. A flat face at a counter is neutral, not hostile. Say Dobry den on the way in and Na shledanou on the way out and you have done the important part.
Beer has rules. You clink, you make eye contact, you tap the glass on the table, then you drink. Skipping the eye contact is a real superstition here and people notice.
Shoes come off indoors. In a home, an apartment rental, sometimes a small guesthouse. There will be slippers by the door and they are for you.
Do not call it the Czech Republic if you can help it. Czechia is the short name and it has been official since 2016. And do not lump it in with eastern Europe in front of a Czech. Prague is west of Vienna on a map.
Watch the bill in tourist Prague. Cover charges, bread you did not order, a service charge plus an empty tip line. It is the one place in the country where this happens routinely. Read it before you pay.
Prague in one frame. A brick tower, a bronze statue and an art nouveau facade, all on the same corner, all older than anything at home.
Food
Czech food is pork, dumplings, gravy and cabbage, and it is exactly as heavy as that sounds. It is also cheap, filling and much better in a neighbourhood pub than anywhere with a menu in six languages.
The dumplings are not the boiled balls you are picturing. Knedliky are steamed bread, sliced like a loaf, and they exist to mop up sauce. Kids either love them immediately or refuse them forever.
The practical rule is the same one that works everywhere. Walk ten minutes off the main square. In Prague that alone cuts your bill in half and doubles the quality. A pub two streets back from Old Town will feed five people for what two people pay on the square.
Getting Around
Trains and buses, and do not drive into Prague. I say that as someone who tried.
Ceske drahy runs the rail network and RegioJet and Leo Express run private trains that are often nicer and cheaper. Prague to Cesky Krumlov is about three hours by bus, Prague to Brno two and a half by train, Prague to Kutna Hora under an hour. Book online in advance and a family of five crosses the country for the price of one tank of fuel.
Prague city transport is metro, tram and bus on one ticket, and it is excellent. Buy a 24 or 72 hour pass and validate it in the yellow box the first time you board. Inspectors are plain clothed and the fine is real.
If you drive, buy the vignette before you enter the country. Czechia requires a motorway sticker and unlike Austria it is barely signed. It is electronic now, bought online by number plate, which is a genuine improvement on the version that cost me an eighty five dollar ticket and a breathalyser test on the side of a highway. The full story is here and it is still the most useful mistake we ever made.
A half litre in a Czech pub costs less than a bottle of water. This is not a figure of speech.
Money and Practical Basics
Never change money on the street or in a booth advertising zero commission. Prague exchange scams are famous and they are still running. Use a bank ATM, decline the machine’s own conversion, and let your card do the maths.
Cards work, cash still helps. Prague and Brno are close to cashless. Village pubs, castle ticket desks and toilets are not. Keep a few hundred koruna.
Tipping is ten percent, said out loud. Tell the server the total you want to pay as you hand over the money. Leaving coins on the table is not the custom.
Tap water is safe and nobody drinks it in restaurants. Ask for it and you will get a look, then you will get it. Or accept that here the beer really is the cheaper option.
Toilets cost ten to twenty koruna. Train stations, squares, petrol stations. Small coins, always.
Lekarna is the pharmacy. Green cross. Pharmacists handle minor problems directly. EHIC and travel insurance both work fine and healthcare here is good and cheap.
When to Go
Prague has one genuinely bad season and it is summer. Everything else is a question of how much cold you will tolerate for how much quiet.
Spring
April and May. Blossom in the parks, mild days, prices still low, crowds building but not yet unbearable. The best all round window if you only get one.
Summer
June through August. Hot, humid and packed. Charles Bridge at midday in July is shoulder to shoulder. If you must come now, be out by eight in the morning and go somewhere else by ten.
Autumn
September to November. Ours was November and the light was low and grey and the city was empty and cheap. September is the sweet spot. October is beautiful. November is honest.
Winter
December is Christmas markets in Old Town Square and it is genuinely worth the cold. January and February are freezing, dark, half price and almost tourist free.
How Many Days and How to Route It
Most people give Czechia three days and see one square. The country deserves more and it costs almost nothing to give it more.
Three days. Prague only. Old Town and the Jewish Quarter, the castle and Mala Strana, then a day that is not in the centre at all. Vysehrad, Letna, Petrin hill.
Five days. Prague for three, then Kutna Hora as a day trip and Cesky Krumlov as an overnight. Krumlov after dark once the day buses leave is a completely different town.
Eight days. Prague, Cesky Krumlov, Brno. Three bases, two easy train legs. Brno is the one nobody books and the one people come back talking about.
Ten days and a car. Add Bohemian Switzerland, Karlovy Vary and two castles nobody has heard of. This is where the two thousand castles finally pay off. Buy the vignette first.
Regions at a Glance
Prague and Central Bohemia
The capital, Kutna Hora, Karlstejn castle. Where ninety percent of visitors spend one hundred percent of their time.
South Bohemia
Cesky Krumlov, Ceske Budejovice, Hluboka castle. Ponds, forests, the prettiest small towns in the country and the original Budweiser.
Moravia
Brno, Olomouc, the Lednice Valtice estate and real wine country. Warmer, friendlier, cheaper and almost untouched by foreign tourism.
North and West Bohemia
Karlovy Vary, Pilsen, Bohemian Switzerland. Spa towns, the brewery that gave the world pilsner, and sandstone canyons that look like nowhere else in Europe.
Where to Go in Czechia
One of these we walked, badly, and it is marked Ours. Everything else is advisor guidance. I am not going to pretend otherwise.
Prague. Ours, and we blew it. Beautiful and genuinely mobbed, both at once. The Charles Bridge, the astronomical clock and Old Town Square are the three most crowded spots in central Europe between ten and six. See them at seven in the morning. Then spend the actual day in Vysehrad, on Petrin hill, in the Jewish Quarter or across the river in Mala Strana where the streets go quiet two blocks up. Do not drive in. There is nowhere to put a car and the streets narrow without warning.
Cesky Krumlov. Advisor guidance. A medieval town wrapped inside a bend of the river with a castle on the ridge above it. Day buses from Prague and Vienna arrive around eleven and leave by five, so stay the night. The castle has a bear moat with actual bears, which settles the question of whether your kids will be bored.
Kutna Hora. Advisor guidance. An hour from Prague by train. Saint Barbara’s Cathedral is extraordinary. The Sedlec Ossuary, decorated with the bones of around forty thousand people, is the reason most families come and it is a real conversation with older children about how other cultures handle death. I would not take a sensitive seven year old.
Brno. Advisor guidance. The second city and the anti Prague. Students, cafes, a functionalist villa that is a UNESCO site, and prices that make Prague look expensive. Nobody plans it and everybody who goes rates it.
Olomouc. Advisor guidance. The town people mean when they say Prague thirty years ago. A UNESCO plague column in a huge square, six baroque fountains, an astronomical clock the communists rebuilt with workers instead of saints, and barely a tour group in sight.
Karlovy Vary. Advisor guidance. A spa town of pastel colonnades in a narrow valley. You buy a porcelain sipping cup and drink warm mineral water that tastes strange, which children find either delightful or offensive. Easy day trip from Prague.
Pilsen. Advisor guidance. Where pilsner was invented in 1842 and where every pale lager on earth descends from. The brewery tour ends in the cellars with unfiltered beer straight from the barrel. There is a puppet museum for the people not drinking.
Bohemian Switzerland. Advisor guidance. Sandstone gorges and rock arches on the German border, ninety minutes north of Prague. The Pravcice Gate is the largest natural arch in Europe. Note that a serious wildfire burned part of the park in 2022 and some trails are still recovering. Check before you build a day around it.
Ninety minutes outside Prague. This is the country almost nobody books, and it is where the value actually is.
Family Travel Considerations
We drove Czechia before we had our three, so this is advisor guidance rather than our own war stories. What follows is what I book and what clients report back.
Castles are the whole trick here. Two thousand of them, most under ten dollars a head, most with a courtyard the kids can run in while you look at things. Karlstejn is forty minutes from Prague and is the easy first one.
The bone church needs a judgement call. Sedlec is genuinely remarkable and genuinely unsettling. Older children find it fascinating. Under eights can find it frightening. Talk about it before you buy the ticket, not in the doorway.
Prague trams beat Prague taxis every time. Tram 22 climbs to the castle and doubles as a sightseeing route for the price of a normal fare. Taxis in the centre have a long history of overcharging visitors.
Portions are enormous and cheap. Two adult mains will feed a family of four with a side. Nobody will care if you share, and fried cheese with fries exists specifically for the child who will not eat anything.
Prague is not stroller friendly. Cobbles everywhere, steep hills to the castle, older metro stations without lifts. A carrier is easier than a pushchair for anyone under three.
Splurge-Worthy Experiences
A night inside Cesky Krumlov
The day buses leave by five and the town empties. Sleeping inside the old centre costs more than a chain hotel outside it and buys you the version of Krumlov that nobody with a coach ticket ever sees.
Prague Castle before the gates open to the crowd
An early guided entry, or simply being on Hradcany square at seven. Same castle, same view over the red roofs, none of the queue. It costs you an alarm and nothing else.
The Pilsner Urquell cellars
The full tour ends underground with unfiltered, unpasteurised beer poured straight from an oak barrel. There is a soft drink version for the kids and the tunnels alone are worth it.
A classical concert in a Prague church
Forty five minutes, often under twenty dollars a seat, held in a baroque interior most people only see the outside of. Short enough that children survive it and cheap enough that it does not matter if they do not.
What Surprises First-Timers
The motorway sticker is barely signed. One sign at the border, in Czech. Austria signs it everywhere, Czechia does not, and the fine is instant. Buy it online before you cross and you never think about it again.
Prague is smaller than you think and more crowded than you think. The entire historic centre is walkable in an afternoon, which is precisely why every visitor is standing in the same four hundred metres at the same time.
Trdelnik is not Czech. It is sold on every corner as ancient Czech tradition and it arrived from Hungary and Slovakia relatively recently. Eat one anyway, just do not put it in the scrapbook as heritage.
It is central Europe, not eastern. Prague sits west of Vienna. Say eastern bloc in a Czech pub and you will get a short history lesson you did not ask for and probably deserve.
Go Deeper
These are the posts this guide is built on. Both of the Czech ones were written from the road in November 2010, one of them while I was still furious.
